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#This isn’t even about Rottmnt anymore I’m just rambling
fanfic-inator795 · 3 years
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Allow me to ramble for a moment:
So, it’s pretty much a fandom consensus that Splinter/Yoshi/Lou Jitsu has the best story and character arc out of all the RotTMNT characters. ...In fact, given that a lot of the other character arcs were rushed through or cut off, you could argue that Splints is the ONLY one with a fully developed arc with the exception of maaaybe Raph and April but that has to do with Nick, not the actual writing so I digress
We see him start off as a blunt and lazy father who occasionally shows a soft side, to learning that he was once a movie star and seeing how much he truly cares about his sons, to learning that the choices he made ended up being a possibly world-ended mistake and seeing him do all he can to fix it like going after the Foot himself and making more of an effort to train his sons, to finally learning the motivation behind his major choices and completely understanding why he is the way he is. It’s a really great story, and it’s a major reason why he’s one of my favorite characters as well as my favorite Splinter interpretation.
...But if there’s one thing that I really wish we could have gotten more clarity on: His time in the Battle Nexus.
Out of all the things in his backstory, this is the most vague. We don’t know how long he was in the Nexus, nor do we see very many of his battles - and the clips we do see are often glorified by Draxum or Splinter. We also see him have two reactions to the Nexus:
A) He saw it as, essentially, an extension of his stardom days. He saw the Nexus as a means of gaining glory and praise despite being trapped, trying to turn a negative into a positive, and being perfectly fine with having yokai fans who love him for his fighting skills. Examples of this are ‘Turtle-Dega Nights’, the latter half of his match with Leo in ‘Many Unhappy Returns’ (”Heh, still got it~!” + him doing a pose as the audience cheers) and ‘Hidden City’s Most Wanted’, with him being clearly touched by the mural a fan made of him.
and B) He saw it as cruel and pointless fighting, and was absolutely MISERABLE there, to the point where what was once his talent and something he was clearly proud of and enjoyed was something he wanted to turn his back against for good. Examples of this are ‘Goyles, Goyles, Goyles’, his explanation in ‘Many Unhappy Returns’, and Draxum’s claim in ‘Hidden City’s Most Wanted’ that he had become a “shell of a man” after a while despite still being a strong and talented fighter, which we saw ourselves in GGG.
Now, let me make this clear that I do NOT think this is bad writing or the show contradicting itself. Humans are complicated, and we’re allowed to have mixed feelings on things - especially when they involve trauma that has to be compartmentalized in order to survive/not have a complete breakdown.
Much like with Big Mama - who Splinter verbally acknowledges is a terrible person and knows it’s foolish to trust her, yet because of their history, how much he once loved her and how great their ‘pre-kidnapping days’ were, he can’t help but miss her/show a bit of affection towards her, being willing to save her and being unable to completely hate her - Splinter’s mixed feelings towards the Nexus makes sense. It was both a source of pride when he literally had nothing else, as well as a source of shame as the fighting continued for years and years. 
However, at the end of the day... a lot of what I just said was simply implied by the show. 
While it makes sense that it WOULD happen, we don’t really get to see Lou transition from enjoying the glory and challenge of the Nexus to seeing it as cruel and pointless. Was his spirit simply broken down after several years of nonstop fighting or was it one particularly bloody fight that triggered a change of heart? And without actually seeing that transition and only having it be implied, if you’re not thinking about it analytically/in context or simply don’t want to, it very well COULD be written off as bad or contradictory writing.
A major example of this is how many people point to GGG as being a bad or contradictory episode. I don’t agree with this take at all and, honestly, I think a lot of the backlash came from people wanting a longer history between Lou and Draxum (no judgement, I had that headcanon too) because, as far as I’m concerned, Lou agreeing to be taken makes perfect sense to me in context.
Imagine you’re in Lou’s shoes: You’ve been fighting battle after battle for at LEAST ten years if not more. You’re tired and are refusing to fight anymore, meaning you’ve pretty much resigned yourself to two fates. You either change your mind and force yourself to fight on and eventually die at the claws of a yokai, or you keep your vow of non-violence and die alone in a cell. Essentially, no matter which one you pick, your life is over and your ending isn’t exactly going to be a happy one, but at least with the latter you can die with SOME honor (hence the vow of non-violence).
But then these cute lil’ goyles come in and say, “Hey, you wanna come with us to be part of our boss’ weird, unsafe experiments?”. It’s crazy, and will most likely result in a painful death (which you’ve already accepted p much) but honestly, this is the best option - because if you’re dead or stuffed in a jar or whatever, at least you won’t have to fight anymore. It’s only after Lou meets his future sons and finds something (or four someones) that isn’t just his survival and that is worth fighting for does he get his survival instinct back. So yeah, while his nonchalance and flippant reaction to it might have seemed jarring at first, the more you think about it, the more it makes sense.
(Also, remember, while he may have played a hero in his movies, Yoshi was NEVER really a ‘hero’ in a traditional sense until he found his sons, with nearly all of his choices being made due to very human reactions and motivations/needs, none of them being selfless until it was time to save the Turtles)
HOWEVER, again because we didn’t get to see that transition from “Glory-Happy Movie Star Turned Gladiator” to “Jaded and Hollow Warrior with Nothing Left to Live For”, I can understand why some people would miss the reasoning behind the character and story changes just because they were so subtle and didn’t have a ton of time in the forefront, instead just being implied. 
BUUUUT because that shift in Lou’s character is such an important catalysis in both his backstory and the show’s story as a whole, being the thing that leads him to Draxum’s lab in the first place as well as just being another important chunk of Splinter’s character (as well as another element that kinda parallels him with Leo), it really is a shame that this transition was just kinda brushed over as “Oh yeah, being stuck in a death arena decade for a decade would probably mess a person up pretty badly, even if they did like fighting”.
Soooo yeah, tl;dr: I still LOVE Splinter’s story and how we saw his transition throughout the show from “Homer Simpson as a Rat” to “Jackie Chan with a Tragic Backstory” to a truly realized and fleshed out (but still chill, awesome and unique) Hamato Yoshi... but I really REALLY wish that the part of his backstory involving him in the Nexus got a bit more focus and was a bit more fleshed out.
(and yeahhhh, that would lead to this lighthearted show being a bit more angsty, but at the very least it would be interesting angst that has a purpose)
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